News Center

April 19, 2010

SSU Men's Volleyball Wins National Championship

The Men's Volleyball Club of Sonoma State University became Division II National Champions after taking first place at the Northern California Club Volleyball Federation Men's Volleyball Tournament on April 1-3.

The tournament took place in Louisville, Kentucky where 48 Division II schools took to compete for the National Title. The team was comprised of freshmen Zak Beltz, Kevin Fontana and Andy Mcrory, sophomore Mike Nicolos, juniors Ethan Weitz, Gaurav Singh, Danny Angelo, Matthias Buhlis and Paul Castillo and seniors Wes Enrst, Matt Hosack, Phillip Brault, David Zvlonek, and Scott Fontana. Coaches are Mark Dunn, Tim Scanlon and Jim Cherniss.

After two days of playing in Louisville, the SSU team entered the Gold Bracket with the top 16 teams as the 12th seed. Sonoma State had Gold Bracket wins over the third seed University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (23-25, 25-21, 16-14), 6th seed Azusa Pacific from Southern California (25-15, 25-23), and the first seed Grove City College (27-25, 26-24), setting up the championship match against the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse at the Kentucky Fair & Exposition Center.

SSU started off slow losing the first set 25-15, but settled down by winning the next two 25-21, 15-8. Scott Fontana was named the MVP of the All-Tournament team for Sonoma State. Matthias Buhlis was named to the First Team and David Zvolanek was chosen to the Second Team.

The championship capped a 27-17 record for Sonoma, which took third place in the NCVF, finishing behind UC Berkeley and UC Davis at the conference tournament at Stanford. It's a winter-spring schedule with Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, Chico State, Fresno State, Sacramento State, Santa Clara University and Stanford also in the league.

What began as 14 guys showing up for practice four times a week and working hard for a common goal, to get back to the national championships, turned into a great accomplishment for everyone. The team came together for a common goal, "ONE TEAM ONE POINT," and carried that to their first national crown.